A Cautionary Tale
by helga3
Summary: Clow Reed and Beelzebub Preposteror at Hogwarts. A Card Captor Sakura, Michael Ende's Night of Wishes, Harry Potter crossover.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Notes:** I've never actually read the English translation of The Night of Wishes, so Beelzebub's voice might be off? Put it down to him being young, or something.

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**A Cautionary Tale**

It was unusual for Clow to find anyone else in the Hogwarts kitchens - anyone else _human_, at least - and if he did, they were usually friends of his. Friends together with whom he had looked for and discovered the way there, even. So when he came down there early one Saturday morning to eat breakfast with friends of the non-human kind instead of his housemates, he was a bit surprised to find one of said housemates already there by a table.

The boy wasn't eating anything, or even talking to the elves. Instead, he was watching them intensely, a shrewd look on his face. The house elves seemed rather taken aback by this, and Clow noticed they kept trying to surreptitiously keep away from him when they had to go past him.

The boy's name, Clow remembered, was Beelzebub Preposteror. Although Clow knew _of_ him, and supposed Preposteror knew of him in turn, they'd never really talked much, only exchanged a few words here and there. They never really saw each other enough to; Preposteror was a first year, five years younger than Clow. Besides, he was not exactly the kind of person Clow would seek out for a chat anyway. Even despite his magical background, entering Hogwarts had always felt just a little like stepping into a Muggle fairy tale to Clow. And Preposteror certainly had the air of being in one as well, only in his case as the obligatory wicked evil wizard out to get the heroes. It wasn't that he seemed especially evil on a larger scale, but more that he seemed to live and breath entirely on pettiness, pointless cruelty and a complete lack of care for other living beings.

Feeling it'd be impolite to ignore him when they were the only two humans about, Clow sat down across the table from him anyway after having stopped to talk to a couple of the elves he knew best. Preposteror turned his studying gaze from them to Clow as he did. They looked  
at each other over their glasses. Clow smiled. Preposteror didn't.

"You're the other foreign student, right?"

"I grew up abroad but half my family is here," Clow explained.

"The Reeds. Yes." Preposteror nodded. "You _are_ one of _those_ Reeds, aren't you?"

"I suppose so," Clow said, knowing that it could only be those particular Reeds Preposteror was talking about.

"I come from the continent," Preposteror continued. His voice, Clow realised, made him sound much older than a first year. It put him in mind of the dry sound a very old door opening would make. "Very well-known. Quite famous. You might have heard of my great uncle Despotius, or my great-great-great-great grandmother Pestia. They were very well-known in they're day."

"Ah," said Clow. "I've heard of them, yes." He had indeed; Pestia Preposteror had been the kind of witch who had had a disease named after her, after all. And based on what he knew of the rest of the family, and of this boy, Clow was getting the impression that Preposteror's family would say it was _in her honour,_ too.

"I could have gone to Durmstrang, of course, but it's a family tradition for us to go to Hogwarts," Preposteror continued. "You could learn more of the _real_ arts at Durmstrang, but we come here to learn English properly. It's the _real_ language of Him Down There, you know." Preposteror pointed vaguely downwards and gave hollow chuckle. "So of course it's important."

"Ah," Clow repeated.

Anything else they would have said was interrupted by a house elf, hurrying over to Clow with a plate full of muffins. Clow smiled down at her. "Thank you, Buffy," he said. The elf bowed repeatedly at Clow, then hurried back with a strange look in Preposteror's direction. Preposteror had been watching the elf the whole time, and followed her with his eyes as she made her way back to her work. "Fascinating creatures, aren't they?"

"Yes," Clow said, taking a muffin from the plate and taking a bite of it. It was delicious. "Muffin?" he said, offering the plate to Preposteror.

Preposteror hardly spared them a disinterested glance. "I don't much care about sweet things. Or, well, food," he said.

"You... don't care about food," Clow said, completely taken aback. This was an entirely foreign concept to him.

Preposteror didn't even answer. "I'd like to study them," he said, inclining his head in the direction of the elves. "Not only house elves, but all kinds of magical creatures. But elves are a good place to start, since there are so many of them here. I wouldn't like to miss the opportunity. I had a great uncle who studied them, you know. He died before I was born, but I hear he had a very impressive collection of specimens to experiment with. I do wish his research notes wouldn't have blown up when he and his laboratory did. They say he made great discoveries about just what it was possible to do to them, and to make them do... Both to themselves and to others," Had Preposteror's voice had any kind of inflictions, it probably would have sounded wistful. "I started out experimenting on the elf we had at home already, but I need more specimens..."

"Well," Clow said tightly. "Don't do any experiments here."

"I know, they're all needed for work," Preposteror said. He was eyeing the elves speculatively the whole time though.

"Right," Clow said standing up from his seat and grabbing the muffin plate. "Also, I know some very useful Chinese curses, and I'd hex you so far into very _interesting times_ that you'd never find your way back," he added cheerfully.

They eyed each other over their glasses for another moment. "Right," Preposteror then said.

Clow smiled. "Good," he said. He was certain Preposteror had enough of a self-preservation instinct not to try anything at Hogwarts. Though he might keep an eye out for any other ideas the boy might have, all the same.

What he did outside Hogwarts, and after Hogwarts, was something he _couldn't_ do anything much about. Beelzebub Preposteror would live his life in his own little fairy tale, because that was the kind of person he was. He would end his life in the appropriate manner to; evil always did get what was coming to it in those types of stories.

Clow knew it.

He also knew his own story would be nothing like it. While Preposteror's place in his story would always be to embody everything the rest of the Wizarding World found so objectionable about their Hogwarts house, Clow's would be the opposite. He would remind them how great a Slytherin could be. And the word great had many meanings, if you looked it up in a dictionary. And when he said _great,_ Clow mused as he headed back upstairs, he meant it in all those senses of it.


End file.
